A map of Pangea overlaid with current country’s borders

[n2doc]

If today’s international boundaries existed two or three hundred million years ago…



http://twentytwowords.com/2013/05/25/a-map-of-pangea-overlaid-with-current-countrys-borders/

[femmocrat]

1. Wow! I can see Mauritania from my house!

Thanks! Very cool.

[woodsprite]

2. And the Cape May-Lewes ferry could have taken me to Morocco! n/t

[freedom fighter jh]

3. Cool. We're all so close and hugging and everything.

But the U.S. might be an animal trying to take a bite out of Africa.

[Squinch]

4. Why do I find this SOOOO fascinating?? I love it!!

[Martin Eden]

5. What's it gonna look like 300 million years from NOW??

And will there be native sentient beings who can illustrate a global map?

[nebenaube]

6. carbon... n/t

[Yo_Mama]

7. Well, I am fond of this video

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[Martin Eden]

10. Very Cool

Plate Tectonics wasn't widely accepted until the late 1960's, though the theory of "continental drift" was developed by Alfred Wegener more than 50 years earlier (and rejected at the time).

[dipsydoodle]

8. I recall reading

that the rock in Scotland north of the "fault line" matches that found in Nova Scotia as opposed to rock found south of the line which doesn't match.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Between about 500 and 400 million years ago, England, Wales, the New England and Nova Scotia coast

the south of Ireland and a bit of present-day mainland Europe (eg the Low Countries) broke away from Gondwana (ie the supercontinent which includes what is now Africa), to form Avalonia; this then collided with Baltica, to form most of present-day nothern Europe, and that combined mass then collided with Laurentia, which forms most of present-day North America. That collision formed the mountains in the British Isles - the Scottish side having been part of Laurentia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Great_Britain

The combined supercontinent of North America and Eurasia, Laurasia, stayed together until the Atlantic starting forming - apparently it took from about 200 million years ago until 55 million years ago (roughly the era of the dinosaurs) to completely separate, and Scotland got left on the eastern side, while the New England coast, Nova Scotia, and most of Newfoundland were on the west, despite coming from Avalonia.

[NutmegYankee]

14. I'm on Avalonian rock here in SE Conn.

It's igneous and high in Radon.

[Flying Squirrel]

9. Well that would have been real cozy..

I'm getting claustrophobia just looking at it!

[TransitJohn]

11. So much easier to play Risk on that!

[NRaleighLiberal]

13. wow - look at Madagascar, all snug and cosy with India!

[Martin Eden]

16. Then think about where India ended up!

It travelled very far to crash into southern Asia, pushing up the Himilayas. That's why sea floor fossils are found miles high (either that, or Noah's flood deposited them there).

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. What surprises me is that Italy and south east Europe are with Africa

'south' of the Tethys, rather than with the bit of Europe that's now directly north of them.

[Pterodactyl]

17. Cool!

[JayhawkSD]

18. When I was in high school...

...the similarity of the East coasts of the Americas to the West coasts of Europe/Africa was regarded as nothing more than an interesting but meaningless cooincidence. The idea that there had at one time been a single land mass had never even been suggested.

[tclambert]

19. Man, India sure moved a long way.

[Ganja Ninja]

20. Wow! I can see Guyana from my house.